Ben Garbacz/Daily Mining Gazette Artists put the finishing touches on a piece entered in last winter's snow sculpture competition on Quincy Green in Hancock.

HANCOCK — Hancock’s annual Heikinpäivä celebration will become larger and busier following the city’s Downtown Development Authority (DDA) meeting Monday evening. The snow sculpture competition held last year in February on the Quincy Green will now be conjoined with Heikinpäivä in January. The DDA approved $14,000 to fund the snow sculpting invitational event, which will expand in size compared to last year due to the city celebrating its designation as the 2026 Finno-Ugric Capital of Culture.

“We’re trying to divvy up and budget how this is all going to look and bump these celebrations up a bit,” Todd Gast of the Hancock DDA said. “The snow sculpture one is probably going to be the biggest bite out of that. But what we’re hoping to do is [have] our sponsorships like we did last year and hopefully the ones that were sponsoring last year will sponsor again this year, and then we’re going to broaden our our net a bit because it will be expensive.”

Gast said the plan is to double the amount of participating teams. He said the nation’s largest snow sculpting competition in Colorado had its team selections on Sept. 1 and the city is looking to offer teams not selected to consider participating in the Hancock competition. Both competitions will take place on the same date, Jan. 24.

“That’s why getting the money solidified earlier is important, so that we know where we’re going to be and what the cost will be as well. So there will be no surprises, but that’s what we’re looking to do and then we’ll look at two local teams, so we’ll have six large sculptures,” Gast said.

There is also a plan to involve local families in addition to the professional sculptors. Gast explained if there are enough volunteers to assist in the setup, there could be garbage can sized snow drops for families around Quincy Green to make their own sculptures.

In other action Monday, the DDA approved a facade grant application submitted by Stefan Ruonavaara for the former Gemingnani’s Italian Restaurant on 512 Quincy St. The funds requested amount to $14,541.77 and will go into exterior renovations. Authority members Frank Fiala, John Diebel and Jonathon Nagel voted against the approval. “I do have some concerns with he fact that all of these purchases and a lot of this work has been done prior to grant approval,” Nagel said. He said he opposed it believing rule 13 of the City’s Downtown Facade Improvement Program Guidelines demonstrate the application does not meet the rules. Number 13 states “Work completed prior to grant approval will not be reimbursed.”

The Hancock DDA amended its 2025-26 budget to include the funds needed for the items passed during the meeting and the purchase of the property on 114 Franklin St. made in July to create additional parking.